From flood and meth lab clean-ups to carpets and hoarders’ slummy sites, the All Aces Cleaning & Restoration team in Queensland prides itself on helping out people who are in distress or need professional assistance, as Cameron Cooper reports.

When it comes to the must-have skills needed to be successful in the cleaning sector, ‘empathy’ is not usually the first thing that springs to mind.

Yet this quality has been at the heart of the growth of All Aces Cleaning & Restoration, a business located in the Brisbane suburb of Murrarie that has been servicing clients from Mackay in north Queensland to northern New South Wales since 1988. Recent flood remediation work in Lismore, in particular, has highlighted

All Aces’ strengths – the company provides first-class products and services while building good relationships with clients and fellow industry specialists.

Nadine Czerner, who bought All Aces with her partner Jamie two years ago, says the flood work demonstrates the importance of having a skilled and sympathetic team when dealing with clients who are suffering.

“People were very happy with brand and service,” she says. “So we’re going to build on those relationships and hopefully we can maintain them and increase the turnover from those companies that we’ve helped through that hard time.”

Operations manager Michelle Fitzpatrick has been in charge of the day-to-day management of the business since joining the fold about four years ago and enjoys the challenges that the cleaning and restoration industry brings. She agrees that excellent teamwork and great people have been the key to All Aces’ strong performance.

“Nadine and I have forged a great team which has shown that it is very empathetic to people such as those in flood situations and getting people back in their homes as quickly as possible,” she says. “Our technicians are willing to drop everything and head to remote areas to help those who are less fortunate than themselves.”

Strategy rethink

All Aces specialises in commercial and residential carpet cleaning and water, fire and mould restoration, along with the treatment of homes and vehicles that been contaminated by methamphetamine labs and drug use.

Nadine and Jamie, drawing on their experience in the construction and insurance sectors, work in tandem with a management team and technicians to fine-tune the products and services available to clients.

Since taking the reins, they have shifted the business’s focus from domestic carpet cleaning to higher-end commercial and residential projects, while also responding to demand for the meth lab clean-ups and squalor and hoarding jobs.

In a highly competitive sector, Nadine says high service levels and a commitment to training technicians to meet Institute of Inspection Cleaning and Restoration Certification (IICRC) standards is paying dividends.

“We pride ourselves on doing the right thing and following the IICRC standards,” she says. “There are a lot of companies out there that aren’t as qualified and they do undercut us, so we do lose some jobs. But we are picking up more work because of our quality.”

Continue reading the full article in the September/October issue of INCLEAN magazine.